apps

Google announced this morning that Google+ is set to receive a massive redesign over the next few days that will make it easier to use and much more intuitive. The company has been innovating quickly with its social network, and this is just another example of their commitment to the platform.
For starters, the main page has seen a complete overhaul. Rather than your tabs bring up top as well as...

Tapatalk, the app that makes browsing vBulletin forums a breeze from a smartphone, has come out of its Version 2.0 beta and is now available for downloading. The biggest feature is an improved UI with multiple theme support, improved moderation tools, a nicer conversation style, and cloud-based account sync.
The official Tapatalk app runs $2.99 in Google Play. And, yes, we'll be updating our own...

There goes the neighborhood. Only a week after finally arriving on Android, Instagram has sold out -- to Facebook. The price, according to a press release: $1 billion in cash and Facebook stock.
Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, on his time line, says that it's more than just absorbing Instagram into the Collective. "We believe these are different experiences that complement each other," he wrote. "...

Listen up, road warriors. Searching for travel on your phone just got load easier. Hipmunk this morning announced an update that brings calendar integration to its already excellent search app. That means when you look for flights, the app knows that you've got a lunch in Sandusky, so don't bother with anything that gets you there at dinner. And it knows that you've got a breakfast meeting...

Cloud storage provider Dropbox has just doubled the referral bonus it gives users for referring friends to the service. Previously Dropbox referrals resulted in a bonus of 250MB for both the referrer and the new sign-up, but from today that's been increased to a more substantial 500MB. Similarly, the maximum amount of storage users can earn through referrals has been upped from 8GB to 16GB. If...

SwiftKey -- the Android Central 2011 keyboard of the year -- has declared war on the spacebar. Never mind that its April Fool's joke actually was to introduce the world's longest spacebar. The latest update to SwiftKey -- dubbed SwiftKey 3 -- introduces, among other features, Smart Space.
Traditionally, Android keyboards use the spacebar as a means to select a suggested word. Or, perhaps, to...

Just a quick heads up that the Android Central Forums app is now available in the Amazon Appstore, for those of you who roll like that. It's all the same incredible forums content you get right here on the site, packaged in a handy free application. If you're rocking a Kindle Fire, it works just fine on that bad boy, too.
Thousands have already downloaded the Android Central Forums app. What...

The 2012 baseball season is upon us. The opening game has been played in Tokyo already, but the rest of the league doesn’t begin until next week. That’s why we thought it appropriate to bring you our picks for some of the best baseball apps for Android. Whether you’re looking for news, scores, live streams of games, or fantasy apps, we’ve got you covered. Baseball season is a long one and...

Endomondo is an extremely popular social fitness application that is available on nearly every platform for users to track and share their fitness. While the application is currently feature packed, the folks at Endomondo have managed to squeeze a few more in there in the latest update. They have added interval training to the application now and this allows you to create custom intervals for...

I'm still looking for my perfect Twitter client. This might well be it. Carbon for Android -- a longtime favorite on webOS and more recently on Windows Phone -- now has a video sneak preview to go along with the stills we saw a couple months ago. And it's looking downright gorgeous.
(And note the cameo appearance from webOS Nation's own Derek Kessler!)
Source; +Carbon for Android

We're not gonna muck this up with a bunch of words. Just watch. And wait for April, apparently, for SAWS | The Puridium War. Mechs. High-def Mechs. Or, as the dev puts it:
The year is 2210, and the world has begun to rebuild after an exploded near-earth asteroid rained down shards of blue all around the globe. Scientists discovered that the crystals that almost destroyed us all, held the...

Flight Track -- an indispensable app for those of us who go places to do things for a living -- just got itself a sizable (if slightly cryptic) update. First, the changelog:
Customizable time zones for flight times
Added calendar-style date selection (phone)
Significant reduction in app size
ICS-based enhancements (phone and tablet)
Missing string localizations for some...

We've gotten a bunch of reports from you fine folks today regarding your Gmail apps causing a screen flicker, and being unable to get to your inbox. We never experienced it here, but that doesn't mean it wasn't happening, as forum threads were popping up all over the place.
Google's just gotten back in touch with us and says a fix is on the way. Googler BrittanyBee explains thusly in the Google...

See that there? That's the Weather Flow app. And that's pretty much all there is to it. Simple, easy-to-read data like date and time, temperature and forecast (daily or hourly). Don't overthink it. The backgrounds (which pan ever so slowly) are gorgeous.
There's a typographic theme (available in black or white) that you can switch to in the settings, and there are a couple 4x1 widgets...

Tripit easily is our favorite app for frequent travelers, and it's just gotten an pretty significant update for tablets as well as phones.
On the larger screens, there's a new layout that includes interactive maps and multiscreen views. Trips and points accounts all share space on the main screen. There also are larger (and scrollable!) widgets available if you're running Android 3.0 and up.
On...

Youtube link for mobile viewing
Dunno what's better — the fact that you can get five new games (well, new to Android) and pay whatever you want, that you can designate where you want your contribution to go to (developers, charity or to Humble Bundle), or the preview video you see above. The answer, of course, is all of the above.
New in Humble Bundle 2 are Zen Bound 2, Canabalt, Cogs and Avadon...

The folks at Fitbit over the weekend slipped an official Fitbit Android app into the Google Play Store. It doesn't take the place of the Fitbit tracker, but it does let you check your daily progress as well as set daily goals and record activities, all from your Android smartphone.
We've pulled back our Fitbit review to give this one a proper look, but for now we've got a slew of screenshots and...

Adele won numerous awards at the Grammys about a month ago and with her official Android app, you can enjoy up-to-date info on the singer right from your pocket.
The app offers a lot for the huge or even casual Adele fan. When you open the app, you'll see changing pictures of Adele making up the background of the app and her name up top. The main options will be listed in green and with a simple...

EA Sports has released two long-awaited titles on Google Play in Europe and North America today -- FIFA (Soccer) 12 and NBA Jam.
FIFA 12 is the latest in the long-running soccer football franchise, and launched on games consoles and iOS last October. The Android version originally launched exclusively on the Xperia Play last December, carrying Sony's "optimized for Xperia Play" branding. Now EA'...

Just a quick heads up that if you can't watch the games in the NCAA Tournament (things get going in earnest tomorrow), Slacker Radio will be streaming audio through the championship game on April 2.
And be sure to check out our NCAA Tournament apps roundup.

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